April 6, 2012

"... to the vulnerability I could hear in someone's voice or hanging plainly on his face," writes Catherine Lacey, who, to become an egg donor, had taken injections of Lupron (which "greatly reduces the sex hormones estradiol and testosterone") and Menopur ("made from the urine of post-menopausal women") and Gonal-F, ("a mega-follicle-stimulating-hormone that is bovine-derived").

If I made eye contact with anyone I immediately wanted to mourn and rejoice them. Subways were impossible. Strangers were emotional landmines. I was the menopausal, pregnant, and postpartum mother of the world.

I realize now that it sounds dramatic. It was dramatic, even to me: I'm not the weepiest woman who ever was. I'm known mostly for well-intentioned sarcasm, level-headedness, and an ability/susceptibility for detaching. So I found the over-emotional side-effect strangely enjoyable, like I was renting some more emotional woman's brain.

It's quite disturbing to think that these stereotypically female qualities are so chemical, that they could be injected, but then perhaps I wouldn't find it so disturbing if I were not myself female.

ADDED: A reader emails:

I used IVF to get pregnant. I took Lupron, Menopur, and Follistim (which is similar to Gonal-F). I didn't have any emotional symptoms at all. The only thing that happened was mild bloating and weight gain. Lacey's experience is totally foreign to me.

Well look at how Andrew Sullivan wrote about the impact of injecting testosterone. He felt more energy, more confident, less able to focus, more volatile, etc. We humans make a big deal of "free will", but there is little, if any, of it in reality.

I remember a neat episode of This American Life (yah yah, I know, NPR) where the topic was testosterone. One guy they interviewed had some disease or condition such that he stopped producing all testosterone. Result? He literally could not make decisions. He had no gut sense of being able to choose, because everything was equally blah.

They also interviewed a woman who was undergoing gender transformation and began taking testosterone injections. This woman/man admitted that prior to her injections she was often disgusted by men and their singleminded sex drive and objectification of women. After the injections? "I couldn't stop staring at women's butts."

Okay, I know what mega means. And I know what follicle means. And I do know what stimulating means.

10 to the 6th power, hair, raise the level of activity.

A drug that stimulates hair growth by a million times. I would take some of that. What the heck, I eat cows already.

No wait. The bovine could be a bull. And derived, well, that could be anything. This could be a trick to get people seeking hair growth times a million to drink raw bull sexy drips. I must say no thank you until I know more about this new miraculous hair growth drug. Presumably body hair, right? The woman became hairy? Where ladies usually aren't but men are?

Being super sensitive to another's pains is a blessing for them that aids in their healing. But as this writer pointed out, it is a burden to carry and one that we usually assign to a strong women. Some like Clara Barton do a great service to injured men.

A touch and a female presence is all that is needed sometimes.

Can love be proto-cannibalism in a socially acceptible forms?

Hormones recieved from another human whether taken orally or injected intraveniously are still the sharing of chemicals in a good way.

Love that results in the sexual act of sharing in the other one's fluids containing their hormones can be excellent therapy whether taken orally or by injection. So our chemicals design us for love in this material world.

And some Catholic please jump right in here and explain transsubtantiation again, that designs us for love in the spiritual world as well.

"I don't get why it's disturbing. We all have heard about the emotional results of steroid use."

Sorry. Go through the posts about fat. Read about all the people who have "will power" and "self control." Don't you think they would be disturbed if those are chemically induced - not the product of "good character."

Go through the posts about fat. Read about all the people who have "will power" and "self control." Don't you think they would be disturbed if those are chemically induced - not the product of "good character."

The two are interconnected to an extent. Thinking "the right thoughts" can alter your brain chemistry, as well as brain chemistry altering your thoughts. People are more than just electro-chemical wind-up dolls.

Some years back a commenter at Two Blowhards said that "For a week, I was a woman." That is, he was given doses of Clomid, an estrogen analog usually used as fertility drug in women. It was done to balance the side effects of steroids he'd been given for some condition.

And for that week, he was weepy, emotional, etc. (At least, compared to his usual state.)

And jeez - haven't we heard a million jokes equating testosterone with aggressiveness? There was a recent book on the banking crisis which suggested it was caused by excess testosterone in the trading rooms.

Go through the posts about fat. Read about all the people who have "will power" and "self control." Don't you think they would be disturbed if those are chemically induced - not the product of "good character."

The two are interconnected to an extent. Thinking "the right thoughts" can alter your brain chemistry, as well as brain chemistry altering your thoughts. People are more than just electro-chemical wind-up dolls.

This.

Just because chemicals affect us does not mean the brain is a static stew. The brain changes through "nurture," people can learn and train themselves to act differently. Of course, some people are just born too much out of balance to do it without medication.